Chicago should clear the road for self-driving cars

Autonomous vehicles, also known as self-driving vehicles, will be here before we know it. We're entering a new era of transportation that combines the best of American innovation and manufacturing capabilities to deliver smarter, safer transportation to American people.

At General Motors, we believe that self-driving vehicles will provide tremendous benefits to society in terms of safety, convenience and quality of life. They have the potential to provide freedom of mobility to individuals who do not own cars or who lack access to mass transit, including senior citizens and those in the disability community. Self-driving cars will also expand economic opportunity to neighborhoods without equal access to transportation. But most important, self-driving vehicles can save lives—and a lot of them.

In 2015, more than 35,000 people lost their lives in traffic-related crashes across the U.S. There were more than 2 million crashes last year, many with serious injuries and property damage. The cause in over 90 percent of these crashes was human error. Self-driving cars have the potential to eliminate this error altogether and, in so doing, transform how people safely get from point A to point B.

States like Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, Tennessee and Florida have recognized the significant potential of self-driving vehicles to improve quality of life, keep communities competitive, increase road safety and transportation accessibility and reduce traffic congestion. In December, Michigan's governor signed the Safe Autonomous Vehicles Act, which provides a clear path to safe deployment of self-driving vehicles and encourages innovation while protecting customer safety.

And GM is immediately setting out on that path by becoming the first high-volume auto manufacturer to build fully autonomous vehicles in a mass production assembly plant in Orion Township, Mich., in early 2017.

Michigan's SAVE Act will allow GM to expand its on-road autonomous vehicle program from Arizona and San Francisco to metro Detroit to incorporate cold weather and winter-driving conditions. This program will accelerate the advancement of autonomous vehicle capabilities, including the potential safety benefits, across a full range of road, weather and climate conditions—and Michigan citizens will be among the first to benefit from the technology as it grows to scale.

Businesses in the automotive and technology sectors are rapidly advancing the development of self-driving vehicles along with local research institutions, which are driving innovation in transportation. Investing in autonomous vehicles will create new, high-paying jobs and spur ongoing economic development in these industries. To remain competitive with other cities and responsive to the needs of its citizens, communities like Chicago would benefit from embracing the SAVE Act as a model to follow. We look forward to conversations with the Chicago City Council and addressing questions aldermen have about autonomous vehicle technology and economic development.

Chicago residents deserve access to the benefits of such technology. In addition to advancing safety, self-driving vehicles have the potential to reduce congestion, supplement the city's public transit system, provide connectivity between downtown and the suburbs, and facilitate a system of doorstep-to-doorstep mobility for elderly and disabled residents.

We understand that the convergence of this connectivity, electrification, autonomous driving and shared mobility gives us the opportunity—and responsibility—to create a new model for personal transportation that changes the way society thinks about the automobile. We believe there will be more change in the auto industry in the next five years than in the last 50, which is why it is so important to support the advancement of self-driving vehicles.

Harry Lightsey is executive director of emerging technologies policy at General Motors.